Legal Help Desk

Today, the Delaware Senate voted to grant the freedom to marry to same-sex couples in Delaware. Governor Jack Markell signed the bill into law, and Delaware has joined the rapidly growing list of jurisdictions in the United States where the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage has ended.

Susan Sommer, Director of Constitutional Litigation, says:

Today we applaud Delaware as it is set to join the growing list of states where loving same-sex couples have the freedom to marry. Just last week, Rhode Island became the tenth state to grant marriage to same-sex couples and the momentum continues. It feels that we’ve been in a period of long celebration for months now, but we must remember that these victories were long in the making.

Today, we celebrate with the thousands of Delaware same-sex couples and their children who will soon be able to have the full recognition and respect accorded to married families. We congratulate our colleagues at Equality Delaware and many other advocates who fought so hard for this victory.

Just two years ago, after civil unions went into effect in the state, Lambda Legal asked Delaware couples to sign on to our civil union tracker to make sure their rights were being respected. We congratulate Delaware same-sex couples for pressing forward to win the freedom to marry.